With five wins yesterday — three at The Meadows at two at Northfield — harness racing driver Aaron Merriman has cut to five the lead of George Napolitano Jr. in the 2015 North American dashwinning derby — the current score is Nap 805, Aaron 800.
On October 11, when we first started following this story, Aaron was ahead 648-642. Napolitano had a devastating October, with 125 wins in only 32 cards — 3.9 wins a card — and although Merriman was no slouch in October with 87 wins, he couldn't do doubleheaders with The Meadows dark for a long stretch in October, and the month ended Nap 724 — Aaron 707, a difference of 17, and a gain for Nap of 23 in the last 20 days of the month.
Nap's margin was at its highest on Saturday, November 21 — 24 wins. NOT COINCIDENTALLY, that was the last night of the 2015 racing season at Pocono, where George had seven wins. He averaged 4.11 wins per card during the nine held at Pocono in November.
And thus not surprisingly, with Merriman doubleheadering and Napolitano driving only at Philly:
lead at end of 11-21 24
11-22 23
11-23 18
11-24 12
11-25 8
11-26 8
11-27 8
11-28 8
11-29 10
11-30 5
Harrah's has eight more cards left this year — W-Th-F-Su this week and next. Napolitano has not officially stated, but has hinted that he will not be regularly driving after the completion of the Philly meet (not-quotable: "unless Motocross
counts as driving").
Ron Wrenn Jr., by the way, two-time defending N.A. champion, had 629 wins as of October 11, but he has driven only at Northfield since then, save a one-night excursion to Dayton for Ohio Sire Stakes championships. He has had good months — outstanding at almost every other level — with 56 wins in October and 57 in November, but his total now is at 723. (He has had 26 wins his last seven cards at Northfield.)
Wrenn has 580 wins on the season at Northfield, and a UDR of .397; Merriman has 524 wins and a UDR of .408. Merriman has also 235 wins at The Meadows, fourth there, with far fewer drives than the three (Palone, Wilder, Hall) in front of him.
Napolitano, for his part, took a record ninth dashwinning title at PcD, breaking his tie with Bill Lambertus, and his 407 wins smashed his own one-season previous mark. He also won his record 7th UDR title there, with a figure of — believe it or not — .407. With eight cards to go at Philly, Napolitano, with 372 wins, is only 8 wins behind Tim Tetrick's single-season record there, and with a 2015 UDR of .399, he has some shot at eclipsing Tetrick's one-season UDR mark of .406.
Napolitano and Wrenn both have "wins" for which they were originally creditedwithin PATHWAY, but now are not been credited to them based on appeals. Both cases involve a 2pl1 horse for each driver; the original crossed-the-line-first horses won when testing positive, but the wins have been recredited away from "our boys" since the cases are still on appeal.
Wrenn won the N.A. title the last two years; Napolitano won in 2010.